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Surely the Trade Minister has better things to do with his time than rail the trolls, especially given a widening trade deficit?

Emerson is defiant.

“Some people would say it is not working and I should be on the phone to Japan doing a trade deal, which shows how little they know.

“What do they think I should be doing? Is it true that every minister at every level of government is working in a traditional way every minute of the day?"

But what exactly does this new medium do for politicians? Or for the democratic process? It’s a surprisingly unsettled argument in political circles.

The implications could be profound, however. In the recent election in the United States, social media was harnessed to engage and organise supporters, raise funds and shape the political conversation.

The
Barack Obama
camp, with its huge existing social media platforms, had the advantage over digital neophyte
Mitt Romney
.

The “boosters" argue that mastery of social media may deliver the winning edge in Australia’s federal election next year.

Yet the news can be bad as well as good, and bad news has never travels faster than on social media. Fired-up supporters can quickly turn up the temperature on opponents in the furious, 24-hour news cycle. This increase in the noise – the louder and more outrageous the better – gives it a formidable negative power.

In theory, social media is a tool that enables politicians to interact with citizens about issues. In reality, it can amplify mistakes and give a candidate global grief. As one campaigner says: “Never underestimate the capacity of a candidate to say something stupid."

TechPresident editor Micah Sifry, whose website focuses on how the internet affects US political campaigns, says fear can undermine the effective use of the tool.

“[Politicians are] not using social media in a way to be genuinely social. What I mean is having a conversation that is human.

“They’re trying to avoid making mistakes or unforced errors. They’re terrified that the real-time, candid nature of a lot of these tools will allow their guy to make a mistake. So you see a lot of control."

In Australia, political operatives on both sides complain that it is hard to get a grip on the opportunities and warn of promoters trying to sell electoral silver bullets.

“You wouldn’t believe how many people in Australia claim to have worked on the Obama campaign in 2008," says federal Liberal Party director Brian Loughnane.

But he backs the power of the net, saying social media and digital marketing were big factors at the last two elections. He adds they will be even more important in 2013.

Another senior campaigner suggests that up to one-quarter of the major parties’ war chests at the next election will be put into digital campaigning, which includes banner advertisements on websites and email.

And yes, the Liberal Party, like the Labor Party, has been talking to its friends in America to work out what will work here and what will not.

“I’m particularly pleased with how far we have gone on Facebook and YouTube," says Loughnane. “Facebook has the biggest reach and is most effective."

The Liberal Party is also boosting its presence on photo-blogging site Tumblr, which has more users in Australia than Twitter.

The reach and speed of social media is irresistible. In the past week even the 85-year-old Pope succumbed. It’s easy to see why. You can talk to millions of people anywhere at the touch of a button.

Just days before the Vatican’s debut tweet, Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
had a tribe of so-called mummy bloggers to tea as she looked for her own slice of the digital conversation.

Both sides of politics have ramped up their net presence. The honours are split – the Liberal Party has the most popular Facebook page, with more than 25,000 likes, compared to Labor’s 14,000. But Labor’s Twitter feed has slightly more followers and its YouTube channel has had more views.

The Coalition has more individual members on the three key social media channels but the popularity of Gillard and
Kevin Rudd
means that Labor has a wider reach.

About two-thirds of federal politicians have accounts on Twitter and Facebook, and about 40 per cent have YouTube channels.

Rudd’s 1.1 million followers makes him Twitter king, with more than three times the pull of the Prime Minister.

Emerson knows he can potentially reach more people on Facebook but he finds it clunky compared to the “bounciness" of Twitter.

“You can contribute to the debate and sometimes have a bit of humour. That’s not the worst thing in the world," Emerson says, adding that he enjoys battling his critics.

“It’s the equivalent of using Question Time around the clock. If you get a really stupid interjection in question time, it is to your advantage."

Emerson concedes he is uncertain of the vote-shifting impact of social media. But he suspects that the compounding effect of “retweeting" could swiftly send the message to a potentially limitless audience.

Politicians enjoy the freedom that social media gives them from mainstream media and admit that their tweeting is sometimes aimed at shaping the Canberra gallery’s view of events.

“The attraction from any politician’s point of view . . . is that it means you can communicate directly without having to go through the gatekeepers in the mainstream media," says opposition frontbencher
Malcolm Turnbull
, one of the Coalition’s most effective users of social media.

“The mainstream media can’t ignore it – very often the mainstream media is reporting what is happening on social media," he says.

Intriguingly, the enthusiasm is more tempered in the back offices of the political parties. While politicians play up the value of engagement and authenticity, their campaign managers stress the need for common sense and moderation. One side sees the opportunity of the new media, the other sees the risk.

Social media is a nightmare for those responsible for disciplined campaigning. It has given every election candidate a national megaphone.

“It is just another source of grey hairs," jokes Loughnane, while emphatically denying reports that his party sought to gag candidates on social media.

“We simply expect our people to be sensible. It is that element of trust."

Every one of the dollars put into social media is a dollar taken away from another campaign resource that has likely been honed over decades.

Loughnane says it’s not a decision to be taken lightly.

“One of the key things campaign directors do is make decisions around the allocation of scarce resources . . . You could easily waste a hell of a lot of money," he says.

Labor national secretary George Wright is reshaping his party’s social media strategy to reflect the shifting landscape.

“Social media is growing at an exponential rate and anyone interested in communication has to be there," Wright says.

Labor’s strategy is more inward-looking. It springs from a survey completed last year by 11,000 members, who said they wanted much more information about what the party was doing, and why.

“Your most important audience is people who support you and people who want to actually participate in your campaign," Wright says.

“We made a conscious decision to change a few things. We’ve had very strong growth at this stage. The amount of information being shared by our followers . . . has doubled since about August. But we have got a long way to go."

Wright says that email – that old and profoundly unsexy digital workhorse – should not be underestimated and that this was a strong message delivered to Labor from advisers to
Obama
’s campaign.

One of the limits in the efficacy of social media for campaigning, says Wright, is that it is “self-selecting".

Social media, unlike television, requires that people “opt in" to the conversation and that those participants are unlikely to be voters up for grabs.

“It is just another tool, you don’t discount it, but it is nowhere near as important as TV advertising in terms of reach and consistency," says experienced conservative campaign adviser Mark Textor.

“Relative to getting a brochure out to 30,000 households, it is almost immaterial for a marginal seat campaign." Digital advertising on websites, which can be tailored to reflect a browser’s physical address, is still much more attractive.

Textor says the main purpose of Obama’s much-vaunted digital campaign was to encourage people to vote. That does not apply in Australia’s mandatory voting environment.

“Obama has spent more on TV than anyone in history," he says.

“Swing voters in marginal seats don’t constantly monitor Twitter. To the swing voter who is otherwise indifferent to political messaging, Twitter is not much help in reaching them. Twitter is somewhat better for motivating harder voters on either end to talk up your cause."

Textor’s golden rule is that social media problems must be cauterised before they seep into the wider world. “Intervene early and quickly, the whole thing is about speed."

Rudd and Turnbull are social media naturals. They interact with their followers and they post on various platforms on matters ranging from the political through to the personal. In contrast, Gillard and
Tony Abbott
(89,000 followers) use their Twitter accounts to broadcast and rarely interact with followers.

“Just be real whatever you are saying. You have just got to be genuine. It is a form of media which is monstrously intolerant of bullshit," Rudd says.

“People want to engage with you as a total person as opposed to a segmented politician."

Rudd spends an hour a day working through his Twitter feed.

YouTube offers a more direct and accurate measure of engagement.

The most popular clip of the viral political moment of the year – Gillard’s “misogyny" speech – was uploaded by the ABC and has 2.1 million views.

It is a reminder that you cannot cage the social media beast. One of the most viewed YouTube clips of Rudd is his infamous swearing out-takes but he insists that he does not care.

“I just don’t," Rudd says. “So what? I swear, most people do.

“It is an uncontrollable medium – just accept that as the first principle."

Rudd is well past first principles. He uses Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even Weibo, or Chinese Twitter.

He believes strongly in traditional campaigning but when he meets people in person, they say they link to him on social media. “It is mutually reinforcing. It is reaching a whole lot of people."

Turnbull is also convinced of the value equation. “We are in the communication and engagement business . . .

“If I refer to a new big announcement or speech, we see the numbers that come . . . we have had to upgrade our website to a more industrial level because it crashed every time we tweeted something."

Turnbull argues that the uncertainty over social media’s efficacy is no different to traditional advertising methods.

“Everything bleeds into everything else. The scarcest resource in the digital age is attention – getting people to focus on something. So we have really got to try and tick every box and use every means."

Turnbull can see the downside to such immediate communication. “Think before you tweet" is his golden rule.

“Some people need to think very carefully before they tweet."

This is salutary advice. In the age of instant outrage, a stray tweet or loose Facebook post can cost valuable air time in an election.

But being too safe defeats the purpose. Turnbull says people want to see debate and interactivity rather being lectured to or ignored, which he believes is not much different to other media.

“If you constrain everybody or they constrain themselves to delivering pre-digested talking points, then that achieves the objective of discipline but it is entirely unpersuasive because it is completely inauthentic."